British duo will feel at home for Far East adventure
One of the BBC’S Winter Olympics presenters once lived in Korea, the other was nearly a competitor, writes Alan Tyers
‘All of the anticipation and adrenalin of skeleton, I actually get that out of live TV now’
Radzi Chinyanganya and Eilidh Barbour might not yet be household names for British sports fans, but the BBC’S Winter Olympics presenters have, between them, got Korea and winter sports sewn up.
Barbour, most familiar perhaps as the Scottish golf presenter who will be taking over the US Masters’ hosting job from her mentor Hazel Irvine this year, has a secret weapon up her sleeve for this Far East assignment: she used to live in Korea.
“It was a wee while ago, but I taught English in Korea for a year after university,” she told Telegraph Sport. “It was in this tiny little village about an hour north of Mokpo, where they have Korea’s largest nuclear power plant.
“It was the children of these very wealthy, very intelligent power-plant people, and the country was desperate for English teachers.
“So there will be lots of kids in that part of South Korea who speak with a Scottish accent. “The adults asked loads of questions about our culture and there was a lot of football chat because I was there during the World Cup. I also had a picture of my family on my desk and they were fascinated by my brother who is very hairy!”
Her co-host Chinyanganya, while unable to claim Korean lingo or having had to explain the Scottish national football team to the locals, nevertheless has legitimate top-level winter sports experience.
“I was on Gladiators and became mates with Greg Kirk, the GB bobsleigh coach and talent spotter, and he said I had the profile of a skeleton slider. I’m about five foot nine, relatively slim and I was quick.
“He said to give it a go and I went to a try-out day at Bath University and loved it. I’d always wanted to have something to get my teeth into with regards training and sport and I just really went for it. I trained in Salt Lake, in Germany, in Norway with the UK squad.
“I came top 10 in the UK skeleton bobsleigh trials for the last Olympics and I had legitimate hopes of competing in 2014 but I didn’t make the cut so that was the end of that journey I suppose.”
Comedy great Jerry Seinfeld may have described winter sliding sports as “the only Olympic event where you could have people competing in it against their will, and it would look exactly the same”, but Chinyanganya said there “is a lot more to it than sliding on a tea tray at 100mph.”
“It is adrenalin, exhilaration, self-control, memory, coordination. When you watch people do it on TV it couldn’t be any easier; when you try and do it yourself it couldn’t be much harder. A bit like golf.
“But that feeling you get when you are flying down the track, and there is no noise, not a single skid and all you can hear is the air hitting your helmet, it is a beautifully serene experience. Majestic.”
“When I hung up my skeleton spikes in 2014 my biggest fear in life was that I would never again experience that anticipation, that adrenalin just before you slide.
“I actually get that out of live TV now.”
And there will be plenty of opportunities for that over the next couple of weeks, as the skeleton veteran and the moulder of young Korean minds host the action and highlights.